"Burmese Democracy":
The San Francisco Chronicle joins the chorus decrying Burma's faux democracy in this editorial. The U.N.'s envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, wants a "credible and inclusive" roadmap to democracy. Gambari is in Tokyo, sipping sake and chatting with the Japanese about ramping up their aid to Burma. They cut it back after journalist Kenji Nagai was killed during the pro-democracy protests.

The Tamil Tigers say eight civilians were killed in two government ambushes. In the same period, nine Tigers were also killed in two clashes with the government. Journalists are barred from the conflict zone so details are necessarily spotty. Sri Lanka is a majority-Buddhist state with a long-running civil war. The Tamil Tigers, a nationalist organization of Hindu Tamils from northern and eastern Sri Lanka, are fighting the government in hopes of gaining political independence, but in southern and western Sri Lanka and other countries they are considered a terrorist organization, and were early pioneers of the suicide bomb.